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Month: December 2013

1. If current trends continue, it will take almost another five decades—until2058—for women to reach pay equity.

Based on an IWPR analysis that projects recent trends forward, most women working today will not see equal pay during their working lives. Furthermore, 2012 Earnings figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau show that real earnings have failed to grow, and the gender wage gap has stayed essentially unchanged since 2001.

2. Black women, Latinas, and Native American women make up just two percent of STEM faculty at US colleges and universities.

In 2010, underrepresented minority (URM) women (blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and those who identify as more than one race) were just 2.1 percent of STEM faculty at U.S. 4-year colleges and universities, while comprising 13 percent of the US working aged population. In contrast, white men held 58 percent of these positions, while making up 35 percent of the working age population. The highest level of representation for URM women faculty is in the life sciences and the lowest is in computer science and mathematics.

3. Of all African American college students in the United States, nearly four in ten are parents.

Despite the centrality of parenthood to the college experiences of many students of color (including nearly four in ten of African American students, one in three of Native American students, and one in four of Latino students), too few postsecondary institutions directly address their needs or experiences as student-parents, or even know how many parents they have on campus. In fact, campus child care serves less than five percent of the child care needs of college students, and the proportion of public postsecondary institutions with on-campus child care is declining.

4. In the recovery from the recent recession, women have regained all the jobs they lost, whereas men have regained only 75 percent of the jobs they lost.

In fact, more women are working today than ever before. Despite gains, neither men nor women have regained their pre-recession labor force participation rate, with women’s labor force participation rate peaking in 2000. If the number of jobs had grown as fast as the working age population since the start of the recession, women would hold 3.8 million more jobs in November 2013 and men would hold an additional 5.4 million. Were it not for women’s strong presence in a few growing industries, however, women would have fared much worse than they did in the recovery, as women have either lost proportionately more jobs or gained proportionately fewer jobs than men within each industry—meaning that men’s rate of employment growth has been higher than women’s in every industry.

5. Expanding paid sick days to newly covered workers in Washington, DC, will save DC employers approximately $2 million per year. Paid sick days also passed in a number of new jurisdictions in 2013.

While DC was among the first cities to pass citywide paid sick days legislation in 2008, the law excluded a number of workers—including most tipped workers—and started coverage only after workers have been employed by a particular employer for more than one year and 1,000 hours. The recently passed amendment to DC’s existing policy, not only expands protections to even more workers in DC. IWPR analysis shows that employers can expect to see the cost of implementing this new policy offset by increased employee productivity, reduced worker absences associated with less contagion of communicable diseases in the workplace, and reduced employee turnover. IWPR’s analyses also helped advocates and policymakers pass new paid sick days laws in New York City and Portland, and inform proposed legislation in Newark, Philadelphia, and proposed statewide legislation in Oregon, Vermont, and Maryland.

6. Four of the 20 most common occupations for women pay poverty wages.

Occupations that are common to women provide lower earnings: Four of the 20 most common occupations for women—‘maids and housekeeping cleaners,’ ‘waitresses,’ ‘cashiers,’ and ‘retail sales persons’—have median earnings for a full-time week of work that are insufficient to lift a family of four out of poverty. An additional two of the most common occupations for women pay near poverty wages, meaning that six of the 20 occupations common to women pay at or near poverty wages. In fact, male poverty has significantly declined since 2010, while women’s poverty levels have stayed steady, leading to a growing gender poverty gap.

7. While women hold about half all jobs in the country, they hold only three out of ten jobs in the growing green economy, and are especially underrepresented in the green jobs that are expected to grow the most.

In 33 states, women in green jobs earn at least $1,000 more per year for full-time year-round work than women in the overall economy. However, women are missing from the fastest growing green occupations. For example, many new jobs are expected to be added for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) technicians, but fewer than two percent of HVAC technicians in the United States are women.

8. 90 percent of in-home health care workers are women, 56 percent are from a minority racial or ethnic group, and 28 percent are immigrants.

As the Baby Boom generation ages (every 8 seconds another American turns 65), women immigrant in-home care workers are filling a gap in home care labor for the elderly. By 2018, the direct care workforce is expected to number more than 4 million positions, an expansion of 1.1 million workers since 2008. The occupations of home health aides and personal care aides are expected to grow at the fastest rates. Immigrants make up a disproportionate share of the in-home health care workforce at 28 percent, and one in five immigrant direct care workers is undocumented. Lack of legal immigration status leaves many vulnerable to low wages and poor working conditions.

This post was compiled by Jennifer Clark, the Communications Manager for the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

Now 20 years old, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) has become a cornerstone of U.S. employment law and human resource policy. But the law stopped short of ensuring true protection to workers: the FMLA only guarantees unpaid family and medical leave for employees, complicating the economic security puzzle for many workers in the United States.

Today, most U.S. employees still lack access to paid family leave. While the FMLA requires that employers provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid job-protected care leave for eligible workers, the lack of a paid parental leave statute means the United States is one of only four countries in the world without publically sponsored paid maternity leave. Paid family leave can bring important benefits to both families and businesses. Yet, many parents with unpaid leave are forced to choose between financial stability and caring for their newborns.

In 2012, only 35 percent of U.S. employees had access to paid family leave to care for newborns, adopted children, or sick family members.[1] The lack of access is even more pronounced for lower income earners: only five percent of the lowest paid workers had this option. Workers with the least financial security, and therefore the least flexibility to go without pay, often do not have access to income when taking time off for caregiving duties. As a result, the burden of unpaid leave can be too much for many women to bear: almost two-thirds of those who needed but did not take unpaid family leave in 2012 were women.

Expanded access to paid leave would mean substantially increasing the amount of time parents take for caregiving. The impact of the Paid Family Leave program in California, available equally to women and men, gives insight into the difference a paid leave statute could make on a larger scale: the program has doubled the length of leave parents–especially low-income parents–take to stay home with their newborns. It has also significantly increased the number of fathers who take advantage of parental leave, even increasing the length of leave they choose to take.

The time parents spend with young children is crucial for their health and development. When that time is paid, the benefits are even greater. Studies show that paid family leave can dramatically decrease mortality rates for infants and children under age 5, a reduction that does not hold for leave that is unpaid or not job-protected. Paid family leave also increases the initiation and duration of breastfeeding, which can reduce children’s risk for serious illnesses, and improve their cognitive development.

Working women, in particular, stand to benefit from paid family leave. Paid leave could help narrow the persistent wage gap that continues to plague working women. Women who take paid maternity leave have seen an increase in wages and depend less on public assistance in the year after giving birth. Paid maternity leave also keeps women in the workforce, which increases the productivity of the labor force overall, and could potentially improve gender equality both in the home and at work.

Paid family leave has the potential to bring important economic benefits to the country as a whole, as well as to individual businesses. Providing paid leave to federal employees, for example, would save the government and taxpayers $50 million dollars per year in turnover costs by improving recruitment and retention of younger employees. Private industry also benefits from the reduction in costs related to recruiting, hiring, and training. Women in California, particularly those in low-wage jobs, were shown to be more likely to return to the same employer following paid maternity leave than those who did not have access to paid leave.

The myriad benefits of paid family leave are clear. And while a handful of states have passed policies that go beyond the federal requirements, there is much to be done to fill the gap left by FMLA and ensure all workers reap the many benefits of paid family leave. The FAMILY Act represents an important opportunity to do just that by instituting family leave insurance for workers. By allowing parents to care for their loved ones without fear of losing their jobs or incomes, the United States would better support the well-being of its workforce, while simultaneously realigning its priorities with the global norm: providing vital paid family leave to its workers.

[1] A variety of data sources measure paid leave coverage rates and some debate exists over which source provides the most accurate picture. This post uses the Department of Labor’s 2012 Family Medical Leave Act survey, which surveys workers and worksites on provision and access to paid leave for parental purposes.

Lindsey Reichlin is the Research & Program Coordinator at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and Stephanie Román is the Mariam K. Chamberlain Fellow at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.